Governor Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State in this interview with editors of select media organisations recently, spoke on the programme of his administration, prudent management of the state’s scarce resources, agenda for education, health, policy on infrastructure and zero-tolerance for corruption in the state civil service. He also used the occasion of the interactive session in the Government House, Dutse, to debunk insinuations that he has abandoned the airport project because it was not initiated by his administration, while also putting a lie to the criticisms that the goat-breeding empowerment scheme for widows in the state was a misplaced priority. The governor also spoke on security and other national issues. JOHN OMACHONU, Deputy Editor, BusinessDay, and ZEBULON AGOMUO, Deputy Editor, BDSUNDAY, were at the briefing. Excerpts:
Since your assumption of office as governor of Jigawa State, how has been the cooperation of opposition parties?
Well, it will interest you to know that, I am the only governor in Nigeria today who still left the PDP chairmen of local governments in their positions. Twenty (25) LG chairmen and two caretaker committee chairmen we inherited from the past administration. When I came in, contrary to the expectation of even members of the opposition, I told them to continue with their work. Again, I am the only governor that has not accused my predecessor of embezzlement. There may be allegations here and there, but you can’t say somebody stole when there is no proof of the allegation. Unless the law court declares someone guilty, you cannot do so on the basis of hear-say. I inherited N16million only from my predecessor, and we met huge liabilities. I inherited too many works in progress in a shrinking economy and in a shrinking oil prices. I have continued with the projects we met on ground.
I am not the kind of person who believes in initiating new projects and abandoning the ones that were started with my predecessor. We are working for the good of our state and our people. I rather complete the projects and let somebody take the credit rather than lose the people’s money or allow the resources to waste.
What is your government doing differently from the previous administrations in the state?
Since we came into office, we have managed to shrink spending. The budget for Government House has shrunk by 70 percent. Hospitability spending and virtually all other expenditures of the state have shrunk. Contrary to what used to happen in the state when some people used to charter flight amounting up to N20million every month; today, we don’t do charter. We don’t spend close to one quarter of that amount. I came from the private sector and I know for us to change the situation of our people, you have to change the economic dynamics of the state. If you check our internally generated revenue (IGR) profile, we are generating little or nothing. It is nothing to write home about, hence, our effort to see how to change the unfortunate situation. We are trying to change the economic dynamics of Jigawa State by creating a sustainable environment for businesses. And we believe the only way to do this is through agriculture where we have comparative advantage.
Some investors are already doing massive rice production in a part of the state. There are others doing tomatoes. We also believe in empowering people, but the structure we inherited is not sustainable.
Our major focus is to create local economy that will in the near future support the state. Oil has no future, prices will continue to fall; new technologies coming up will always ensure that oil is not sustainable. We are also looking at enhancing our IGR through taxation. We must ensure that necessary taxes are collected and properly remitted to government coffers. Before now, many people defrauded the state.
What is the state of infrastructure in Jigawa today?
In the area of infrastructure, there’s enough we can chew already from the inherited projects that were not completed. When we came in, we found that there are areas – communities and towns –had not seen light for two to three years. What we did was to make special arrangement, where we provided diesel and other necessary things to provide light to them for many hours daily. That intervention has cost the state government a lot; but my happiness is that we are being as prudent as we can to ensure that we serve our people. When we came in, we just did not revoke the contracts awarded by my predecessors. All we did was to invite the contractors and renegotiated the terms and they agreed with us. For your information, we saved some money for the state also.
On housing, we believe we have to develop a model that will help our workers own houses.
We have talked with Mortgage banks to get funding to build the units that workers can afford. On health, we have a project to have one health facility in each ward. We have one school of nursing that can train about 50. We plan to take about 150 nurses and midwives abroad for training.
We target Thailand where they do the type of professional training we need. The selection of beneficiaries will be based on each constituency. To raise doctors for the state, we want to send about 60 students to China on training. Two persons will be selected from the 30 constituencies in the state. We need personnel for our health needs. There’s no need to build structures without personnel to work there. However, we are starting up a specialist hospital that will eventually be a teaching hospital for the state university. In addition to tackling the infrastructure challenge of the hospitals, we are equipping, renovating and fencing them.
Some people have criticised your empowerment approach to widows, particularly the goat breeding and rearing micro-credit programme for widows. What informed your approach?
Those who say such things don’t understand the scheme. I have studied the success of the scheme. I have practised it myself, it worked and it is working in Bangladesh. It is working here also. It is because people do not understand how to solve problems. This has been done in other climes. Personally, I have tried it in other vocations. But it is a kind of prestige to give our people loan. For people who are into sowing, you gave the sewing machine. That is perfect model. But you gave out 20 or more sewing machines. Nobody will be able to make N100 from it. But the goat programme is good. In many countries, it has proved very successful. We recorded 70 percent success in the goat programme we did. We put monitoring and evaluation mechanism in place to measure the impact of the programme. If you evaluate all empowerment programmes in this country, you discover that the success rate is less than 20 percent. Some beneficiaries sell the empowerment materials given to them the same day they collected it because it cannot sustain them. We identified 20 widows from each ward. We have 287 wards in the state. What we did was to give each beneficiary three goats (one male and two females). It is a complete approach to solving widows’ problem in the state. Each of the goats can breed twice a year and may have two or three kids at a time. We have started this and we shall continue it. We have other forms of empowerment for the youth. Our administration does not just want to train youths in certain skills after which they cannot find something to do even with the skills acquired.
Before we arrived here, people said the only place where life exists in Jigawa State was Dutse. How true and how do you intend to extend this life to other parts of the state?
That is not true. In 27 headquarters of local councils, we have streets. We have roads. We have businesses. In fact, there is more businesses in Hadejia than Dutse. It is not true because we are not blowing our trumpet. There is a lot of misinformation. Some people said he never stayed in the state. Contrary to what some people said, I am about the only governor that comes to the office at about 9:05 a.m. except I am not in the state. Whenever I am in the state, I resume for work at 9:05 a.m. daily.
Jigawa is said to be among the educationally disadvantaged states in the country with poor school enrollment, what is your government doing to change the story?
The major challenge we have in education is getting the quality and quantity of teachers we need. In fact, we have huge gap in teaching staff in the state. We had a disastrous outing in the last West African School Certificate (WASC) examination after spending so much money. We are doing all we can to ensure that the problem is addressed. You have to start from the primary schools in order to solve the problem of poor performance in education. You can’t possibly fix a problem that had been there for over eight years in a matter of moment. It will take some time. We are exploring e-learning platforms, but because of lack of internet in the rural areas across the state, we can only record and transmit in schools. But to change the tide in a very short time requires miracles. We are really taking some steps to address the problem of dearth of teaching staff. For instance, we want to move some civil servants who have teaching backgrounds into the classroom. We have discovered that many civil servants are redundant and we have determined to redeploy them.
The early marriage of girl-child has remained a critical issue in the North. What is your administration doing to promote the education of girl-child?
The education of girl-child is completely free in Jigawa State. It is completely free from nursery to university. In addition, we have some classes, where we bring every girl-child and train them. We set up these classes to enable us access the parents of these students. Sometimes, the parents have some economic challenges and as a result children are given out at early age. We are training them as a strategy to access these families gradually so that their daughters will go to school. Most of them do not even go to school because of tuition. But we have taken it off. It has been difficult convincing the parents to release their daughters to attend school. They prefer to send them to do some menial jobs to sustain the family. Despite the fact that the state government pays the tuition fees, many parents are not keen. The state government is really doing a lot in that direction.
You said you inherited almost an empty treasury; with the sharp drop in monthly allocations, how have you been meeting up with payment of workers’ salaries?
Jigawa is a civil service state; once salaries are not paid, the groundnut seller in town will quickly feel it. We have continued to pay salaries despite the shrinking resources. What we did as soon as we came into office was to plug some holes through which people were siphoning money from government. Through the biometric exercise we conducted, a lot of ghost workers were discovered. It means that some people were making themselves rich every month by collecting salaries of workers that did not exist. We have been able to block that. The state government supported some local governments last month to the tune of N226 million for them to pay salaries; that’s to show you how bad the situation is. A lot of my colleagues can’t even pay salaries, so we still consider ourselves lucky to be able to do so.
There’s the allegation that you have abandoned the airport project because it was not started by you. What’s the truth?
The question to ask is; how can you continue to maintain a route that is not sustainable? I don’t support using tax payers’ money to sustain a route that is not bringing passengers. When there is no traffic, I can’t create one. I do not subscribe to a situation whereby the state government will pay for 60 passengers three days a week. The last administration was paying N27, 000 per passenger. And it paid for 60 passengers for three days a week to support traffic development. And this traffic development has been in existence for over one year. How can you develop a route for over one year and cannot sustain the route? Despite this, you continue taking the public funds to sustain the airline so that people will say aircraft is landing in Dutse. What we are trying to do is to create businesses, develop some tourist centres that can then help to attract traffic to the state, then we can go back to the airport project. Once we create activities that will make people mobile, the airport can be viable. We are discussing on the possibilities of using the airport for agric route, aviation school and hanger. I would rather develop more irrigation areas than putting the money in an airport that will not help the economy of the state in the immediate. But I assure you, the airport has not been abandoned; if you go there, workers are still there working. All the projects in the airport are going on. The lighting is going on. Other projects are being executed in the airport. Sincerely, the work is going on in the airport, but we are prioritizing things.
If the planes are no longer landing, what are you going to do with the airport?
That is a good question. But planes are landing. But my administration will not support the idea of using tax payers’ money to subsidise route. The route has been there for more than one year. And the route is not developing. Sometimes, the plane will bring only one passenger and the state government had to pay for 60 passengers three times a week. That is what has been happening. All the shout is about the subsidy. I did not stop any plane from taking off from the airport. The airport is active. Even last week, Alhaji Aliko Dangote landed there. A lot of people are coming and going through the airport. We do all our air-lifting from the airport. We intend to air-lift all our pilgrims this year through the airport. But when there is no traffic, I cannot create one. I do not see the magic that will lead traffic by subsidizing an airline just for it to come to Dutse and go. This can come back. But first, we have to develop the economic activities that warrant the movement of people. Unless we create businesses or develop some tourist attractions that create air traffic, then we can go back and start developing air traffic. I will not allow the airport to deteriorate. It has been built already. I will not allow it to waste away. But certainly, I cannot spend public funds to support an airline that brings only one or two passengers into Dutse. Even in Hadejia, they have choice either to come here or go to Kano. But most of us are already married to Kano. We have one or two brothers or sisters there. What we intend to do with the airport is to create economic activities that will develop air traffic. If that happens, there is the possibility to continue, even if it will take another six months to pursue traffic development programme. Again, we are discussing cargo export with DHL. We have already sent people to Kenya to find out how best we can achieve this. Furthermore, there is already a proposal on aviation school. We are also looking into it.
Beyond the issues you raised, what is the plan of your administration to industrialise Jigawa State considering the potential of the state to produce tomato, rice or sorghum in large quantity?
After Kano, the second factory of Aliko Dangote will be in Jigawa for tomato processing. We have decided to allocate 500 hectares for tomato production. But right now, we have 200 hectares for this purpose. We also have farmers, who have started cultivation on 200 hectares. Already, the state government is subsidising the transportation of tomato to Dangote’s tomato processing factory in Kano. This will enable us to learn how to produce and understudy the best practice. At this initial stage, it will not be difficult for farmers to transport what they produce to the Dangote tomato processing factory because the state government has subsidised the transport. Already, the farmers have collected the seeds. Aside, they have attended training and are now working hand-in-hand with Dangote Tomato Processing Factory. We have put in a request for a portion of land for tomato production. Finally, we are doing that with sorghum and others. Even sorghum, we are discussing with Cadbury to see how we can package the whole value chain. We will bring in extension workers and provide them with certified seeds, farm implement, fertilizers and training on credit. That is why I said we are trying to do what will move our administration forward…
Security is central for all the programmes you have outlined, but you have not discussed the security agenda of your administration. Again, considering the spate of terrorist attacks in the North East, how do you intend to ensure security of lives and property?
The issue of security is basically federal. What the state can do is to support the security agencies. We have been supporting them. We have very good relationship with traditional rulers. And our information system with the traditional rulers is superb. The traditional rulers report the security agencies any new person that comes into their territories. Does it not surprise you that despite our location- we are bounded by Yobe on one side, Kano; Bauchi on the other side, Bauchi also and Niger Republic on the top- yet we have remained peaceful. I do not know what to say really. We are doing so well in security. We are also investing so much in security.
The proposed loan the Northern State Governors’ Forum wants to access from Islamic Development Bank has been a controversial issue. When eventually accessed, what specific areas would you like to inject the loan facilities?
As of today, every state in the North would decide what area they would want to use the loan. In Jigawa, when I came into office, I inherited a discussion on the proposed loan from Islamic Development Bank with respect to a facility of $232 million. It is meant for infrastructure development. For us to really grow our agricultural sector, we need to develop our infrastructure and the road networks that will help the farmers. That is what I inherited. First of all, we are not in a hurry to collect the money. We have to evaluate our situation first. After due evaluation, we can then arrange our loan based on what is coming in so that we can service easily. We are all rushing for the loan because it is almost interest-free. I know different states want to use the loan for income-generation activities. For instance, we discussed about the development of solar power generation. It is highly capital-intensive project. But in the long run, it will pay back. A lot of us have seen opportunities in solar energy. A lot of us are talking about the initiative. We will go to analyze our position.
What is the area of priority of your government?
We are looking at taking agriculture to the next level. As I have said, we have comparative advantage in agriculture. We are trying to increase our IGR and to build a sustainable economy in the state. We are looking towards rice- the rice factory is about to begin operation. March 15 we are going to open another factory. We are working to see how to create a new economy. We have deployed about 450 extension workers that have been trained and we continue to train them. They go to the farms to supervise; we provide them with machines to do so.
As a private sector man, how did you adapt to politics?
You see, what is driving me; what made me to join politics is because I foresaw all that is happening now. I keep telling politicians to develop their economy and not to rely on oil. In Jigawa, government salary is an issue. If you pay salary today here, groundnut seller will feel it. Government is the biggest employer of labour. I want to create a large economic base to see how I can change the fortunes of my state. That’s my focus. Since I came into office as a politician, I have reduced my lifestyle by many percentages. You must live by example. We have to lay a solid foundation for economic sustainability.
What is the people’s perception of your government in the state?
Do you know what they call me here? The civil servants now call me ‘Baba Mai Calculator.’ People out there are appreciative of how we scrutinize everything we do. Our value-for money and our project management approach are great. We do not pad our project cost. If we give you a contract, you give us the right cost of the project and we pay you on time. We ensure that due-process is followed in the award of contracts and procurement of materials.
